


a thing of beauty is a joy for ever

by The_Lionheart



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Parents, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Dad Martin, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Trans Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: “You have a daughter?” Jon asks, and Martin gives him an utterly unimpressed look. “I just didn’t, um. You don’t seem like the type?"
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 49
Kudos: 172





	a thing of beauty is a joy for ever

Martin’s voice trembles just a bit. Jon supposes he can’t expect him to maintain an air of professionalism, at a time like this, but it makes Jon deeply uncomfortable.

“And then I remembered that I’d seen quite a lot of spiderwebs in the brief time I was down there, and maybe I should check it out again. I mean, like I said, I’m not really afraid of spiders. So… I let the sitter know I’d be stepping back out for work again, and I went back for another look.” 

Martin’s eyes go soft and dark and unfocused as he tells the story of his second trip through the basement at Boothby Road, seeing the woman who stood inside it, and what happened when she noticed him. Jon watches him speak, and it’s… strange. Martin is speaking almost more to the tape recorder than to him, a tremble visible in his hands and in his shoulders, in the dirty, smudged lenses of his glasses and in the unwashed, dull-blonde curls on top of his head as they bounce over the shaggy hair growing out on the sides. He normally keeps it cropped close to the sides of his skull in a neatly trimmed undercut, even though by the end of a workday his curls escape any semblance of neatness. The sight of his unkempt hair disturbs Jon. Admittedly, Jon isn’t one to make much of a fuss over personal appearances, least of all his own, but he - he doesn’t know why it is that the change in his archival assistant’s appearance would strike him so. 

Martin runs a shaking hand down over the lower half of his face. He looks… wrung out, more exhausted than he had half an hour ago when he’d first thrown himself into Jon’s office, shaking a fistful of dead worms out of his jacket pockets.

“I knew there was no way that I’d be able to work the next day, but without my phone, I couldn’t let you know. I mean, I don’t have a landline - who does anymore? But I… I could barely bring myself to stay awake long enough to pick Cynthia up, much less send an email. So I just, just brought her home and tucked her in and collapsed, fully clothed, onto my bed.”

Martin’s face twists, into an expression Jon recognizes as guilt. “I don’t know how long I slept for, but it was still dark when the knocking woke me up. I… I know it couldn’t have been too long, it was still dark, and Cynthia would have woke me up-” He trails off, and Jon makes a note to ask him for clarification, but - but later. It seems important, it seems _right_ , to let Martin talk until he’s done, and Jon knows he’ll know it when Martin’s done.

“-well, I dragged myself up, and, as I sat there, it all came back to me, what I’d seen, and I shuddered. I tried to tell myself that I’d imagined it,” he adds, with the dreadful air of an anxious confessional. “You know, maybe I’d overreacted to finding a homeless woman sleeping in a basement. Maybe she was sick and needed an ambulance. Oh god, maybe I’d left her there to die.”

Jon presumes that Martin is not here now with a pile of rotting worms because a sick woman died in a basement, but he finds himself transfixed and unable to intercede. 

“Cynthia came in at that point. She’d heard the knocking, and - and she,” Martin lowers his face into his shaking hands. “She came to get me. Oh, god, what if she hadn’t, what if she’d opened the door herself, and, and-” He swallows, sitting back up a little. “But she, she didn’t. She’s fine. She came and got me, she’s always been very good, she came and got me and I went to switch the light on but. But nothing happened. I tried the lamp next to my bed, and I still… I tried to check the electronics, but everything was off, and I thought it must have been some sort of power outage. Maybe the knocking was a neighbor coming to check in on us. So I sat my Cindy down on my bed to wait, and I went over to the door and reached for the handle.”

“As I was about to open it I got a sudden chill and stopped. What if _she_ was outside, waiting? I mean th-the worms that made a hive of her body, eager, striving to make me one as well.” Martin’s eyes go glassy, his fingers picking nervously at his sleeves. “I thought of that awful case you had us looking into where that woman… burst into worms, and I realised that this woman must be _that_ Jane Prentiss you were telling us about. I never had one of those peepholes added, so I couldn’t see what was out there, but as I took a step back I saw something on the floor, crawling out from underneath the door. It was a small, silver-looking worm.” 

Martin shakes his head, hugging himself a little. He tells Jon about the terror-fueled urge to kill the worm, stamping on the encroaching vermin. He tells Jon about using clothes, blankets, towels - _his_ clothes, blankets, and towels, he is sure to emphasize - to block up the door and the windows and even vents and drains. He tells Jon about eating cold ready-meals and canned peaches for nearly two weeks. He tells Jon about the crushing boredom, about trying to stave off the dullness with books and stories and making a little game out of it, which Jon can _sort of_ appreciate as being a reasonable response to the horror of being trapped inside one’s own apartment.

He tells Jon that this morning he knew, somehow, that Jane and her worms had gone. He tells him that he’d grabbed up everything important and run all the way to the Institute. He tells Jon that he hadn’t known where else he could go, and casts a guilty look toward the door of Jon’s office as he does.

“Statement ends,” Jon says, after a moment of stunned silence. “You’re sure about all of this, Martin?”

“Look, I’m not going to lie to you about something like this, Jon,” Martin says sharply - which is completely understandable. Jon doesn’t know what he would have done if faced with a closed door and endless knocking and some sort of monstrosity on the other side. Martin’s face goes a little wry. “I _like_ my job. _Most_ of the time.”

“Very well,” Jon says, and then, before he can ask himself why, he adds, “There’s a room in the Archives I use to sleep in when I’m working late. I suggest you stay there for now-”

“Oh, um,” Martin says, turning red. “Actually-”

“-I’ll talk to Elias about getting extra security, but - what is it _now_ , Martin?”

“It’s just,” Martin says apologetically, “I, uh. I don’t know that I can stay here with Cynthia, Jon. She’s got a lot of energy and, well, you know how it is, just-”

“Well, it’s not… exactly allowed, but in this circumstance you should be alright to have a cat in the Archives,” Jon sighs, before giving Martin a stern look. “Assuming you didn’t _leave_ her there in your apartment?”

“What _cat,_ Jon, I don’t have a-” Martin is even redder, his eyebrows furrowed and his face doing something entirely unreadable. 

“Oh, you… you _are_ a dog person, aren’t you,” Jon says flatly, and Martin tilts his head to one side. He looks a bit charmingly quizzical, but for the fact that Jon thinks he detects annoyance or… or anger? Which doesn’t seem right for Martin, either, but he supposes the man’s been through a lot. “Well, I suppose I do have to draw the line somewhere, perhaps you can see if Tim or Sasha can keep Cynthia at one of their flats, if-”

“I’m going to shout,” Martin says pleasantly. “Jon, we’ve worked in the Archives together for nearly nine months now, and man to man, manager to employee, I’m going to need to ask you what reason it is you think, after nine months of me bringing her up every day, and having her photo on my desk, that Cynthia is a dog.”

Jon stares at him, dreadfully out of depth. He presses his hand to his mouth.

“It’s not some sort of pet tarantula or-” he starts, and Martin stands abruptly. “Oh God, it is, isn’t it? That’s, alright, that isn’t okay, I can’t-”

“How would a tarantula or, or a dog or a cat open a _door,_ Jon,” Martin cries, gesturing. Jon flinches back.

“Well, I certainly don’t know, I wasn’t going to ask for, for a demonstration,” he snaps, and Martin presses his fingers into his eyes, pushing his glasses onto his forehead. “So - if Cynthia isn’t a, a dog or a spider, then what is-”

“Christ, Jon, she’s a kid!” Martin takes a few shuddering breaths. “Oh my God, how do you not know that I have a six-year-old? No, you know, I don’t need an answer to that question, actually, I-”

“You have a daughter?” Jon asks, and Martin gives him an utterly unimpressed look. “I just didn’t, um. You don’t seem like the type? Is the, uh, the mother around?”

“Jesus fucking wept, Jon,” Martin mutters. “It’s just me.”

“Ah,” Jon says, at a loss for anything constructive to say. “And she’s… six?” 

Martin puts his face in his hands. “Yes. She’s six.”

“Where is she now, then?” Jon asks, and Martin shoots him another entirely unreadable look.

“She’s sitting at my desk with Tim and Sasha,” he says, his tone utterly flat. “I don’t suppose you thought I left my human child alone in the apartment either?”

“No, of course not,” Jon says, which is a bit of a lie but does soften Martin up a bit. “I just… I suppose I thought perhaps you had family nearby who might be able to, to help with… with watching her?”

Martin’s face twists into something like a smile. “Just the two of us, I’m afraid.” 

Jon doesn’t know what to do, but it seems entirely unreasonable to allow Martin and his child to go back to a worm-infested flat. Then again, the idea of Martin living in the Archives wasn’t ideal either, but now Jon can only envision a tiny scaled-down Martin added into the mix. It feels dreadful to contemplate, and after a moment of desperately searching for something to say Jon realizes that there’s been something else on his mind, before Martin started talking about children. 

“Wait,” Jon says, frowning and digging into his pocket. “You said you lost your phone two weeks ago?”

“Thereabouts,” Martin agrees, giving him a puzzled little frown. “When I went back into the basement.”

Jon waves his phone a bit. “Well, in that time, I’ve received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems. The last one said you thought it “might be a parasite,” though my calls trying to follow up were never answered.” Martin blinks, before giving Jon a weak attempt at a smile.

“And here I thought it was just that nobody cared that I’d been missing,” he says, chuckling softly.

“That’s not funny, Mar-” Jon begins, cutting himself off with a sudden flinch as his phone vibrates to indicate an incoming text. He manages not to drop his phone, though only barely, and realizes with a fresh twist of dread that whatever’s been texting him in Martin’s stead has just sent another one. He thumbs his screen open, trying not to wince.

“What?” Martin asks, and Jon gives him a worried look.

“I just received another text message. From you.” He glances back up at Martin, then at the latest message. “Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.” 

Martin’s face blanches, and he chews nervously on his thumbnail - which, Jon notices, has been bitten to the quick, just like all of his other fingernails. “What does that mean?”

Jon shrugs. It seems pretty self-explanatory.

“It means I’ll ask Elias to hire extra security. I should probably warn Tim and Sasha as well. I’ll… have a look through the Archives as well, as I believe we have a statement from Ms. Prentiss herself in here somewhere.” Jon glances at Martin again, who mostly seems to be… puzzled again? That can’t be right, though. “Recording ends.”

Jon pushes the button to stop the tape, and Martin bursts out with a gusty, laughing sigh.

“I can’t believe you recorded the bit where you thought my daughter was a tarantula,” he huffs, and Jon glares at him for a few seconds before remembering that he’s been dealt a large ongoing trauma and probably is a bit giddy. “Also, Jon, I… listen, even though I can’t use it, thank you for, for offering to let me stay in your room here.”

“Why are you thanking me?” Jon asks quietly, frowning down at the desk to avoid looking at Martin’s pale, exhausted face any longer. “It’s of no actual use to you.”

“Just-” Martin sighs again, quietly. “Just thank you for thinking of it, I suppose.” Jon looks up from his desk, but Martin’s face is still too much, so he allows his gaze to settle on Martin’s hands. There are a couple of old bandages wrapped around his fingers, dotted with old black-brown stains where the blood seeped through and was allowed to dry, and Jon finds himself wondering how a man and a six-year-old child could just… dip out of public view for two weeks and not be noticed or reported as missing. No family, Martin said, but surely… teachers? Friends? 

Well… Jon and Tim and Sasha had noticed, hadn’t they? Only all it had taken to dismiss Martin’s absence was four text messages, and if Martin hadn’t come in - if Jane Prentiss hadn’t grown bored of him - they would have never known what happened. They, or possibly just Jon, wouldn’t even know this child existed.

Something goes hard and heavy in the pit of Jon’s stomach when he realizes Martin is giving him a weary smile and standing up. Jon stands hastily, too. 

“Well,” he says, squaring his shoulders. “I should introduce myself.” He doesn’t allow himself to be cowed by whatever sort of suddenly _parental_ expression is occurring on Martin’s features; he opens the door instead, marching down to the larger room where his assistants all have their desks. 

Tim and Sasha are both hovering at the sides of Martin’s desk, where a very small person is sitting. It is definitely a child - hair in a fluffy mass of curls a few shades darker and redder than Martin’s own, tiny little hands struggling to hold an adult-sized pen and a plastic lidded terrarium with a bit of mulch and dirt and an ornamental log inside. Jon glances up at his other two assistants, who both look rather beseechingly back at him. Or possibly at Martin, just behind him.

“Oh, your Daddy’s back,” Tim says in an all-too-saccharine, higher-pitched version of his normal voice. “You’ve been having fun with your Uncle Timmy and your Auntie Sasha, haven’t you?”

“No?” the girl asks, looking up at him. “You’re not my uncle and she’s not my aunt.”

“But we’re both fun?” Tim tries.

The girl gives him a slightly severe frown, before looking demandingly at Sasha. 

“I make no pretense at being fun, Miss Blackwood,” Sasha offers, and the girl nods, seemingly accepting this as she hugs her terrarium to her soft pink jumper. She looks very like Martin - round face, round eyes, a very small but noticeable dimple in the center of her daintily cleft little chin, and an assortment of freckles on what Jon can see of her face and hands. Fewer freckles than Martin, but that’s not exactly hard to accomplish, the man’s simply awash with them. 

“Have you been good for Mister Stoker and Miss James, Cindy?” Martin prompts, and she tilts her head up at him, considering her behavior over the past half-hour. 

“Who is that scary man?” she asks, and Tim and Sasha both have to try very hard not to let Jon see their faces.

“Cindy, that was not a polite way to talk to someone,” Martin says gently, coming around Jon to crouch near the little girl with his face. “Can you apologize to Mr. Sims?”

“The scary man is Mr. Sims?” she asks, and Tim visibly bites his lower lip. Jon decides it’s high time he put an end to the silliness, before his assistants begin to think of him as some sort of… child-frightener. 

He steps forward, offering her his hand. “I’m not a scary man. My name is Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.” Sasha puts her hand over her face, turning away from him.

Cynthia grasps his hand in hers, and he gives it a brisk shake. Her hands are pudgy and soft, much like what else he sees of her from behind Martin’s desk. 

“I’m Cynthia,” she says, before giving her terrarium a serious look. “I’m Head Takes Care Of Charlotte. I’m six.” 

“Ah,” Jon says, releasing her hand. He gives her a slight nod toward the terrarium. “I presume Charlotte is in there.”

“Yes,” Cynthia says, and Martin clears his throat. “Sorry I was mean to you for being scary, Mr. Sims.”

“I see. Well, I was six once as well, so I’m sure all is forgiven,” Jon says. He straightens up - Tim is all the way turned around, and Sasha is gazing directly at the ceiling instead of at him, and Martin is trying very, very hard not to meet his eyes as he grins softly at his daughter. There is a somewhat battered Peppa Pig backpack on the ground next to her, and she is wearing pajama bottoms and trainers, and the bag is the sum total of her worldly possessions until she has access to her home again, and when will that even be? 

And there is no corresponding bag for Martin, not even the canvas messenger bag he normally takes in to work. Martin offers Cynthia his open hand, and she looks at it and puts her own hand in the very middle of his palm to be held. 

And Jon would have liked to know that Martin wasn’t in danger of homelessness or death, and therefore it feels very sensible to open his mouth and offer, “Well, Martin, the two of you will be coming with me, then. I’ll have to leave you to come back in here to make up the rest of my workday, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’d be unwise to try to force yourself through working the rest of today. You’ve been… through a lot.”

“What?” Martin asks, and Tim sits up a little, exchanging a significant glance with Sasha. 

“Well, if you can’t stay at the Institute, then you’ll have to stay with me, as I have no other options in that regard for you,” Jon says, even though the words are starting to strike him as incorrect. The expressions his assistants’ faces seem to indicate that he is being incorrect as well, but he decides that now is not the time to show weakness. “You will be staying in the guest room at my flat. Ah, unless - unless you have other accommodations, I suppose?”

“I… I don’t?” Martin asks more than says. Jon nods. 

“And you think that’s a good idea, do you?” Tim asks, and Sasha nudges his ankle with her shoe. 

“Well, do you have a guest room they can borrow?” she asks pointedly, and Tim flushes. 

“Well, no, it’s a studio, _but-_ ”

“Well? Then that’s all settled,” Jon says. “If there are no further objections-”

“Charlotte has to stay too,” Cynthia says, shooting Martin a frown. “Dad, tell Mr. Sims Charlotte has to stay too.”

“Well, Mr. Sims,” Martin says, blushing. “Cynthia would like to know if it’s alright if Charlotte could stay in your apartment as well.” 

“Charlotte is… certainly a name for a pet,” Jon says, and he realizes, very slowly and awfully, that it’s probably not a lizard or a mouse in the terrarium. 

“Yes,” Cynthia says, sitting up proudly. “I love Charlotte.” 

Jon supposes he was right about the pet tarantula, but he really, truly wishes he weren’t. 

“Well,” he says. “If… if Charlotte stays inside her box at all times, then. I’m not permitted to have pets in my flat, so we’ll be breaking the rules by bringing her. Therefore, we will need to keep her hidden.” Cynthia scowls a little at the prospect of not being allowed to have a pet. He pauses, then, feeling like there might be a light at the end of this particularly awful tunnel, “In fact, we might need to let Charlotte live here in the Archives if you don’t wish to break the rules?”

“No,” Cynthia says firmly. “I will break the law to have Charlotte, because I love her and she’ll be lonely if I don’t.” 

Martin gives Cynthia’s head a pat, fluffing her hair up a bit. Jon is now realizing that this was the worst idea he’s ever had, and furthermore that there’s simply no way to actually take back the offer. 

“I wouldn’t want her to be lonely,” Jon says miserably, and when he spots a single tip of what might be a leg edging out from inside the log he panics, turning and marching towards the elevators. It’s a few seconds before he realizes he ought to have told the Blackwoods to follow, but he hears a clatter and a pair of footsteps soon enough.

So.

That’s good, then.


End file.
